Antichrist by Langgaard, R., on. 09 feb. 2022, Fra (2022/2022), I regi av Ersan Mondtag, Dirigent Stephan Zilias, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Berlin, Germany

The Antichrist enters a godless world. Called by Lucifer himself, he reveals himself in many forms: Mankind is tested and tempted in the "quarrel of all against all" through arrogance, discontent, desire, lies and hatred. But in the end the voice of God puts an end to the Antichrist: "Hephata!" / "Open up!" - the world seems cleansed. Rued Langgaard's "Church Opera", composed in the early 1920s and thoroughly revised by 1930, is a monolith in the composer's oeuvre, which is not short of exciting and unusual works. Based on the Revelation of St. John, he designs an eschatological mystery play that cannot hide the zeitgeist of the fin de siècle. His highly symbolic text, full of associations, is correspondingly historically pessimistic. But the dazzling music – characterized by the late-Romantic, large orchestral sound, which also collapses again and again and from which sparse and sober details are worked out – brings hope to the dark world. The artistic loner Langgaard has found a personal style here that is reminiscent of Strauss and Wagner, Director Ersan Mondtag makes his Berlin opera debut – the extremely powerful imagery of the multi-award-winning director, whose works have been seen several times at the Theratertreffen, with its over-aestheticization seems to have been made for Langgaard's apocalyptic mystery.